1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an anticancer composition containing a suspension of a quinine salt compound, and more particularly to an injectable composition for local administration containing a suspension of a quinine salt compound as a main compound, which is injected directly into cancer cells to exhibit an anticancer effect of inducing necrosis of the cancer cells.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, tumors are diseases in which abnormal cells proliferate uncontrollably and interfere with the function of normal cells. Tumors are classified according to histopathological and clinical criteria into malignant tumors and benign tumors, and the so-called cancer belongs to malignant tumors.
Cancer is the first leading cause of death in Korea, and is also a leading cause of death worldwide. The cause of development of cancer or a method for treatment of cancer has not yet been clearly elucidated. Cancer therapeutic agents that have been developed to date show problems associated with fatal side effects, expression of drug resistance, destruction of lymphocytes and bone marrow, etc., when they are clinically used. Due to such side effects, the cancer therapeutic agents show symptoms, such as weight loss, hair loss, etc.
Accordingly, there is an urgent need to develop novel anticancer agents that exhibit selective cytotoxic activity against cancer cells without affecting normal cells.
Up to now, about 270 kinds of cancer have been found to occur in the human body. Cell lines reported to be used in research of these kinds of cancer include gastric cancer cells (MKN-45), sarcoma cells (Sarcoma-180), melanoma cells, adenoma cells, adeno-carcinoma cells, Ehrlich ascites tumor cells and Walker carcinoma cells.
Meanwhile, quinine is widely known as an antimalarial agent, and is currently being used for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, discoid and systemic lupus erythematosus, photosensitive skin diseases. Recently, studies on quinine for the suppression of renal injury and the treatment of malignant glioma have been reported.
In addition, quinine is known to inhibit cellular activity and serve as an antipyretic.
Korean Patent No. 10-0390332 discloses an anticancer composition which allows an anticancer agent, such as doxorubicin or cisplatin, to be co-administered with hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine, primaquine or the like, which is frequently used as an antimalarial agent, thereby reducing the 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) of the anticancer agent and inhibiting the drug resistance of cancer cells caused by the anticancer agent.
In this case, the antimalarial agent, such as hydroxychloroquine, is used as an adjuvant to inhibit the resistance of cancer cells against the anticancer agent so as to increase the anticancer effect of the anticancer agent, and the anticancer agent exhibits its effects by systemic administration via various routes, such as oral and parenteral routes.
Furthermore, Korean Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 10-2006-0034316 (published on Apr. 24, 2006) discloses an injectable sclerosing agent for treatment of hemorrhoids, which contains quinine, borneol, a gallnut extract, and a licorice extract.
In the above patent application publication, a description of cancer treatment with a quinine salt or the description of pharmacological effect of the quinine salt cannot be found.
In addition, the applicant has acquired patents relating to an injectable composition for local administration for treatment of hemorrhoids (Korean Patent No. 10-1067443) and an injectable anticancer composition for local administration (Korean Patent No. 10-1208587), which contain hydroxychloroquine.
According to the above Korean Patents acquired by the applicant, hydroxychloroquine is effective in the treatment of hemorrhoids and cancer. However, there are problems in that hydroxychloroquine is water-soluble, and thus it spreads to normal cells surrounding hemorrhoids or cancer cells to cause a significant problem associated with systemic toxicity, is difficult to administer at high concentration, and induces necrosis of normal cells.